Alumni Star In Rerun Of Graduations

Alumni Star In Rerun Of Graduations

WEST HARTFORD — Frank Curtin, Ward School of Electronics Class of 1950, will once again don cap and gown and march to "Pomp and Circumstance" -- this time at the University of Hartford.

The graduation Saturday will seem like the rerun of an old home movie.

It is called recommencement, a word invented to describe a ceremony saluting Curtin and other alumni from the university's four founding colleges by giving them honorary degrees.

"It's the icing on the cake," Curtin, a Manchester resident, said.

The colleges -- now known as Ward College of Technology, Hillyer College, Hartford Art School and Hartt College of Music -- merged as the university in 1957, and now "we're part of the University of Hartford family," said Curtin, an engineer for United Technologies Corp. and a consultant before retiring. "It was an advantage to merge. More prestige."

About 100 alumni are expected to get the degrees, hear an address by David Komisar, chairman of Hillyer's psychology department, have lunch and see videos and memorabilia from university archives.

Of 2,800 surveys sent out to graduates, 240 have responded, some from as far as Hawaii, as well as from across the state. Those not attending will receive their degrees through the mail.

The recommencement is a gesture to show alumni they belong to the university and that their schools are part of the university's roots.

"It's symbolic," University President Humphrey Tonkin said. "The ceremony is held to give us a link with our older alumni. We want to reach out and draw them into the university family. The truth is we wouldn't be here today if it weren't for those colleges."

Tonkin said it is important to recognize that history.

John Just Ellis, a Farmington resident who graduated from

Hartford Art School in 1952, said it is significant to be a part of that era in the university's history.

"And now the university speaks for the rest of the schools, and to be honored is pretty nice," he said.

Still, alumni speak of their loyalty to those schools. Ellis, who got a master's degree in education from the university, said he has shown his paintings extensively, "and that's because of my training at the art school."

But some alumni, especially those from Hillyer, speak with bitterness. The college's name, they say, was lost until 1979 when a drive to call the headquarters for the college of arts and sciences Hillyer Hall succeeded.

Betty Cunningham of Newington is content with memories of her Class of 1949.

"I don't want a University of Hartford degree," Cunningham said. "I'd just as soon stick with Hillyer. I'm proud of our college."

Linda Leslie, an alumni relations office secretary who has been swamped with responses to the recommencement, said Hillyer is synonymous with the university, and Hillyer's president, Alan S. Wilson, led the movement with local businessmen to bring the schools together.

Yet Leslie understands. On questionnaires, alumni call Hillyer "the most memorable and valuable experience in their lives, a school they loved because it was small, because everyone knew each other and because it had a family atmosphere," she said.

Darefsky was pleased to see the new campus in 1957, because he went to school in an old building and remembers having to dress in a basement locker room, then charge up three flights of stairs to the gym.

But Darefsky, who lives next to the university, did not set foot on campus until the new Hillyer Hall opened, a turning point for him.

"They had such a good turnout, you couldn't even get into the building," he said